The War
by SPJaymo117
Summary: In the burned out husk of London, the resistance rises. Voldemort won the war and has taken over Britain. Harry is dead and hope is lost. We follow the dark and tragic tale of Danny Murphy, a muggle resistance fighter in London. He'll bump into a few people we know along the way... Expect to be surprised. Characters will be revealed as we go. Don't want to spoil anything
In the burned out husk of London, the resistance rises. Voldemort won the war and has taken over Britain. Harry is dead and hope is lost. We follow the dark and tragic tale of Danny Murphy, A muggle resistance fighter in London. He'll bump into a few people we know along the way... Expect to be surprised. Characters will be revealed as we go.

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 **Chapter 1: Union Jack's Farewell**

Another cold and misty morning in the burning ruins of Trafalgar square.

 _Fuck_ _this war._

I huddle in my bolthole near the ruined monument that used to stand here, cold and miserable. Covered by a silvery material known as Synthetic Hyper-Intensive Terfenol (SHIT for short), I can feel the frigid ground beneath me, leeching out whatever body heat I manage to create. _Fuck this war_ , I think again to himself as I shiver, watching the grimy sunshine's oozing light break into my small shelter.

I pull out a cigarette- my last- slowly, trying to savour the process. There won't be any more for at least a week, if not longer. I have to make this one count. My teeth chatter as I lift my lighter reverently, cupping the small flame lovingly from the biting late autumn wind.

The tip of cigarette burns cherry red as I inhale deeply. The first drag is always the best. _Bliss._

"Enjoy the moment," I mutter under my breath, expelling smoke and steaming breath.

Another soldier had told me that once. That was the day before he'd had his head blown off by one of the maniacs wielding a small stick with the power of a rocket launcher.

 _Christ that was long ago. Back when I still thought we could win this war,_ I think acidly.

How foolish I'd been. How naive.

My stomach groans in hunger as I watch the sun rise in the dissipating smog. At least the cigarette will keep the cramps away for a few hours yet. If only it could keep away the memories too.

I clench my jaw, fighting back the series of flashing images in my mind. Friends killed, strangers tortured, and impossible nightmares coming to life right before my very eyes.

I have another pull of the cigarette, willing himself to stop thinking.

I can't.

My mind resumes it's dark and twisted ritual of replaying every brutal fucked up thing I've seen in the last three years.

 _Three fucking years._

Has it only been three years? It feels like a lifetime. I can almost remember a time where things still made sense and the universe had rules. If only that world still existed.

I'd watched it burn to ashes in the space of a day. Everything I'd known. Gone in an instant.

A man named Voldemort had murdered the prime minister, the queen, and the entire British parliament in under twenty four hours. The chaos had been unimaginable, the fear infectious.

He hadn't even made any demands before he'd started killing, and there hadn't been a damn thing they could do to stop him. Oh there'd been those who begged of course, but he'd killed them just the same.

He was relentless. As ruthless as a rabid dog and crazy as one too, he'd torn through the best defensive measure that technology had to offer like it was nothing. A wet paper bag would've put up more resistance to his onslaught than the government that day.

To be fair, it wasn't everyday that a god came to rip apart your world and shit on the ashes. I can't stop the bitter smile that twists my face. The irony is not lost on me that the very thing we ruled out as being an impossibility was the thing that destroyed us.

After the dust had settled he'd strode into the BBC with his group of hooded cronies like he fucking owned the place and made a country-wide broadcast. Cease and desist all efforts of resistance or face the consequences. Death, rape, torture, and the utter obliteration of our society.

I take another drag of his cigarette, savouring the harsh burn at the back of my throat. _Almost half way through_ , I note absently, as I ash it with a flick of my finger.

At first we'd tried to fight back with all their fancy weapons and clever technology. None of the generals believed that this nonsense 'magic' Voldemort had spouted on about was truly real, and if it was there was no way it could stand up to any serious kind of firepower. They mobilized the army, the special forces, air force, and the navy immediately in an all out attack.

They should have payed more attention to what the man had done to the security around the government.

He tore most of their equipment apart like they were children's toys. Oh sure a few of his followers died at first but it was a false victory. They quickly realized that turning invisible limited their casualties quite quickly.

But that was before he even did ' _it.'_

What ' _it'_ was exactly is hard to quantify. Magic obviously, but people felt it across the entire country. It was like some kind of current ran through the air, and all of sudden everything changed.

All technology went dead. Not just 'I-need-new-batteries' kind of dead either, but as in 'it's-totally-fucking-dead' dead. Nothing could be repaired or fixed, and anything we bought in from overseas broke too.

Instantaneously our most dangerous weapons were compromised. Jets couldn't fly, helicopters were grounded, tanks shut down, and boats lost power. No smart bombs, drones, missiles, or even nukes could make it through the invisible force field. In a matter of minutes we'd effectively moved back to the dark ages in regards to the technology we had available.

It's hard to fight off a group of sadistic killers when you can't even see the bastards coming.

That was when the shit hit the fan.

That was when he decided to punish us. Halloween of 98.

He leveled most of London that day, blowing up more buildings than I can count. His followers became invisible grim reapers on the streets. I'd say the gutters ran red with blood, but that wouldn't be true. Half of those killed didn't even have a mark on them. In perfect health, they'd dropped dead on the streets. My mum was one of them. The rest weren't so lucky.

Some wizards tried to fight against them. They came and fought on the streets, side-by-side with 'muggles' as they called us, but they were slaughtered too for the most part. It was a massacre and Voldemort had laughed as he watched our world burn.

Since then the countries been divided. Those willing to serve the sick bastards and those of us still fighting. We both die by the thousands but at least we get to pretend we're free.

The north has been annexed by many of Voldemort's followers and turned into kind of medieval serfdoms where people now slave away for their magical masters. The stories that make their way down to us here in London aren't pretty.

I resist the urge to shiver.

Not all of the magicals are bad though. There've been a few who've tried to help us, but what we can gather from them the good guys they had took a beating about four years ago. Some old guy by the name of 'Dumbelldoor' was killed by Voldemort followed by a boy called Harry Potter. He was the one who was supposed to stop old snake face. The-Chosen-One. You'd think he was the supposed to be Jesus the way they talk about him. To bad he didn't rise from the grave on the third day.

Unfortunately, virtually all of the wizards who have helped us have been ruthlessly hunted down and tortured to the point of madness or have had their families murdered. It's a fate that's widely considered to be worse than death, and it's led to a severe downturn in the number of magicals that we now have on our side.

At first other countries tried to help us too. Then snake-face threatened them. He told them that they each had people like him in their own countries and if they intervened he'd make sure the same thing happened in there countries. That shut them up real quick. 'Enemies' behind your own lines do tend to freak governments out, no matter what assurances the magical communities tried to relay to them. Putting yourself at the tender mercies of a bunch of people who looked like they were part of a role-playing game wasn't high on the list of to-do's for most nations. Surprise surprise.

They collectively withdrew support, unsure of how to continue. Only the Yanks bother sending any kind of aid any more and that's mostly just guns. The only thing we have that still works on our god-forsaken island. Although the SHIT they brought with also has some kind properties that makes us impervious to magical detection. Magicals can still see us, obviously, but for some reason it stops spells from finding you. We were skeptical at first, but they brought a wizard with them who'd proved it to us.

It was something and so we took what we could get.

The war has degenerated into a guerrilla conflict between us in the South and the magicals in the government's gone, and there isn't any sort of organized rulers, but we have a loose leadership structure amongst the resistance. It's quite hard to figure who's in charge though because people are constantly being killed. Sometimes even by our own people under the 'imperius curse'. A sick little magical trick that gives a wizard- or whiskeys as we like to call them- full control over your mind. It's been a one tragedy after another. _If only Sarah hadn't_ -

I stop myself there. I've inflicted enough self pain for one day.

I exhale sharply, dispelling the memories. The cigarette has almost burned down to the stub while I've been thinking. _Stupid._ I flick the butt away from me, annoyed at myself and wishing I'd enjoyed it more. I should've listened to that fucking soldier. I pack my SHIT away and attempt to stomp some feeling back into my feet. I spare a glance at my battered and scratched watch before remembering it's broken. It doesn't matter anyway. It's always whiskey killing time.

I shoulder my .50 caliber sniper rifle, stolen from the body of a soldier, and make my way towards another burned out building. If I'm lucky I can scavenge some food. If I'm luckier, I'll find a whiskey to kill down range.

So here we are. Without support, knowledge, understanding, and technology, trying to take down a bunch of genocidal fucking magical lunatics ruling our country.

We thought the last Great War had been the worst, the most brutal, and that something like it could never happen again. We should have known better.

War never changes.

The date is October 31st, 2001. Welcome to London. I hope you enjoy your stay.

-Danny Murphy

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Authors notes:

This idea just hit me as I was thinking today. Wrote it over the last hour sitting in a coffee shop. Won't be updated as often as my other story and I'm looking for a beta reader for it. Message me if interested. Please review though and let me know what you think!

On wizards being called 'whiskeys' is a reference to the military's phonetic alphabet. Got the idea from 'Charlie' in Vietnam.

Hope you liked the fallout quote ;)


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